So this year, we decided that we are going to live within $2000 per month. Last year, we spent a little over $32000 at an average of $2666.66. This year, we hope to bring that down to $2000. Its going to be a little difficult, but I think we can make it. Looking back at the expenses, there were some bad decisions we made, and this year, I am going to try my best to avoid them.

Between car repair and travel, we spent $2744.41. We need to avoid these big ticket expenses as much as we can.

I will post my progress at the end of each month. So far in January, we already spent $1856.74. We got around $140 to spend before the end of this month. It will be difficult. However, the good thing is, all the bills are paid. The only expenses we anticipate are fuel and food...

SingleMomDebt

does this include rent? bills? savings?or just purely expenses? w/thoughts on your post. i tallied the following for me: $1,799 expenses + savings sans bills, $2,749 w/bills, $4,539 w/bills and rent.

dropping your spending down $666 does sound challenging. but a good challenge can be fun. looking forward to your updates. sounds like cleaning out the pantry and some recipes from budget bytes could help out.

does this include rent? bills? savings?or just purely expenses? w/thoughts on your post. i tallied the following for me: $1,799 expenses + savings sans bills, $2,749 w/bills, $4,539 w/bills and rent.

dropping your spending down $666 does sound challenging. but a good challenge can be fun. looking forward to your updates. sounds like cleaning out the pantry and some recipes from budget bytes could help out.

Thank you, I appreciate your insight.

This will include all expenses, but not savings. I understand that I am kind of going against the norm here by not budgeting savings, but I am tracking those separately. So yes, $2000 will include ALL expenses (mortgage, utilities, cell phone etc.)

I think it can be done. The reason the average was up to 2766 last year was because of some very big expenses towards the end which pushed the total way up. This year, if we are careful, I think we can make it. I will post more updates.

$2,000 per month is what I generally aim to spend, though I mostly failed at it in 2016 (with an overall monthly average of $2,373). For me, that $2,000 includes all spending - rent, utilities, insurances, food, etc., but doesn't include savings or debt repayment.

If my wife just didn't start the university 40 miles away this year I would totally be in.The house got paid off last Sept so our fix expenses are only 880/months. That would leaves us with $1100 for food/home/entertainment/gas, etc....In Nov of last year, you had our lowest month yet of $1843.

does this include rent? bills? savings?or just purely expenses? w/thoughts on your post. i tallied the following for me: $1,799 expenses + savings sans bills, $2,749 w/bills, $4,539 w/bills and rent.

dropping your spending down $666 does sound challenging. but a good challenge can be fun. looking forward to your updates. sounds like cleaning out the pantry and some recipes from budget bytes could help out.

Thank you, I appreciate your insight.

This will include all expenses, but not savings. I understand that I am kind of going against the norm here by not budgeting savings, but I am tracking those separately. So yes, $2000 will include ALL expenses (mortgage, utilities, cell phone etc.)

I think it can be done. The reason the average was up to 2766 last year was because of some very big expenses towards the end which pushed the total way up. This year, if we are careful, I think we can make it. I will post more updates.

Wow. I can't live on $2K until my mortgage is paid. How much is your rent/mortgage?

We are trying really hard not to eat out, because we simply cannot afford it. If nothing unexpected comes up, we can afford to make $44 last for 15 days. We have all the basic groceries, but its going to be tough. I am kicking myself for buying $50 worth of computer related stuff at the beginning of the year. I could have waited till February for it. I think the lesson here to make sure I make these unnecessary purchases towards the end of the month, when I know exactly how much we have spent on groceries etc.

I have a similar goal of $1500/month, which is easier being single and having set up my life in the mustachian style of moving to walking distance to work while minmizing other life costs while cultivating inexpensive hobbies. I am more impressed with threads focused on spending less than those based on saving more (since the latter is more income-dependent), so I am looking forward to following this thread! Good luck!!

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"Stache" Goals by Year End as Multiples of Annual Living Expenses 2018: 6.27x2019: 8.57x2020: 10.98x2021: 13.52x2022: 16.18x2023: 18.98x2024: 21.92x2025: 25x

Due to lack of self control and poor planning on my part, I ended up spending $4 on lunch yesterday...this puts us at $1960.92. We have less than $40 to manage for 9 business days. Weekend tend to be less expensive. I have to go grocery shopping this Thursday, so I am going to have to keep it to a minimum. At this point, its not about money anymore. This became personal. Haha!

I am not going to spend a single penny until Thursday. I will post about my grocery expenses when I return from shopping.

This looks like a really cool challenge; I'm in! What are the rules for this challenge? When you say that you're not counting savings, do you mean short-term savings like Christmas gifts and home repair-type funds?

Our spending so far this month is $1375(family of 5). It'll probably hit very close to 2k by the end of the month though; I'm estimating at least $200 for groceries, we need to buy a new toilet and paint for our apartment(roughly $200), and Mr.T plans to spend his birthday money from his parents on fisherman's wool so I can make him a sweater(about $130). Our water and car insurance bills are nearly due as well, so that's about another $200, which puts us a little bit over unless I can cut down the groceries and supplies.

Hello, I have been looking at this thread unsure if I should join, but I think I'm going to jump in now. Seems like a positive place to keep myself accountable. Every time I do a low spend challenge I end up wanting to do the next month anyway... so why not a year! My SO & I have separate expenses right now so I am holding myself to a much lower number than $2000. I will aim to be under $1400 each month (not counting savings and student loan repayment).

No money was spent yesterday. I gave up my allowance this month i.e., my fun money budget this month is $0, and my wife used some of her allowance money to buy cheese and lunch meat. We are definitely going to the extreme this month just for the sake of being under $2000. We are still at $1960.92 this month. I think if I can keep the groceries under check tomorrow, we should be able to pull it off.

Is this halved for single people? I probably can't keep it under $1000 consistently (with health insurance at $231 and rent/utilities at $700, that's not enough to eat) but $2000 is way too much. Is it worth it to join the gauntlet if I set my own lower goal?

I'd love to try this, but healthcare for us is 1k/month:( and living on the road our gas will vary wildly. and DH isn't quite that thrifty.

I will see how many months I can come "close" to 2k, that would be fun.

so if we are in a location we like and we stay a couple of months, gas will be somewhat normal - but not mustachian as our commute car is a 1 ton dually. Our travels will be to disc golf courses and the grocery store, so I could see us getting close.

Our rent has been prepaid for the year (annual dues for TT and RPI paid in December) but I do have a slush fund for camping fees of $200.

No bills, and no utilities so then there's food and propane left. A little discretionary spending here and there.

Is this halved for single people? I probably can't keep it under $1000 consistently (with health insurance at $231 and rent/utilities at $700, that's not enough to eat) but $2000 is way too much. Is it worth it to join the gauntlet if I set my own lower goal?

I think it is reasonable to make your own "living within" number that is a challenge for you but also takes into account your fixed costs. My housing costs are very high due to my city, so I went with $1400! It would be nice to see people striving for their own specific number somewhere between $1000 and $2000.

No money was spent yesterday. We are still on track. Today will be grocery shopping day. We will see how that goes.

I am going to have to reevaluate this goal. Will do so this weekend. I will not be able to stay under $2000 if I have any medical expenses. So I am going to have to come up with categories that I want to control. Also, I have this incredible urge to pay off our house...if and when we do that, I will definitely be able to live for less than $2000 total. Lots of thinking to do this weekend.

Thanks again for all your support, and good luck to those who are joining. One thing to remember is that you will have your own number, $2000 is not feasible for those living on the coasts or in large cities. Feel free to post your own number!

I'd love to try this, but healthcare for us is 1k/month:( and living on the road our gas will vary wildly. and DH isn't quite that thrifty.

I will see how many months I can come "close" to 2k, that would be fun.

so if we are in a location we like and we stay a couple of months, gas will be somewhat normal - but not mustachian as our commute car is a 1 ton dually. Our travels will be to disc golf courses and the grocery store, so I could see us getting close.

Our rent has been prepaid for the year (annual dues for TT and RPI paid in December) but I do have a slush fund for camping fees of $200.

No bills, and no utilities so then there's food and propane left. A little discretionary spending here and there.

It will be fun so see how low we can go.

Oh, I'm not counting our health insurance premium in my $2k spending; ours is $800. It's through Mr.T's employer, so that just comes straight from his salary.

Looks like we may go a bit over. I wasn't counting on Mr.T spending all the money he got from his family, about $90 more than I'd figured. Today is grocery day, so we'll see how I do out there.

(Clothing is very very high - I spent $0 last year - because I gave myself a $750 budget at the beginning of the year to completely redo my wardrobe - turning 30 & starting to get more TV gigs, it's time for a redo. A bit crazy as far as the amount of money, but hopefully worth it.)

Travel Fund: $200Travel Hacking Fees (credit cards, etc): $20

Travel expenses are so high because I'm aiming to travel on the trans-siberian railway this year for a month (!!) I'll be pretty frugal (no hotels unless couchsurfing is unsafe for a single female, bring own food on train, etc) when I'm out there but it's definitely not the cheapest excursion overall even if you just consider visa costs (I am travel hacking for the flights to/from).

My budget all together stands at: $1581.50, so that leaves me another $1020 annually for unexpected expenses.

I'd love to join this with my own goal! $1300 or less a month, AND I want that total expenses number to drop every month so that I hit a minimum in December (which is going to be real fun with the holidays coming around). Hoping for a total expenditure of about $17k this year, and yes, that's including a big fat cushion for international travel.

That said, I'm a childless single pringle with many roommates and no mortgage in an extremely HCOL area, an unmustachian commute, and some expensive hobbies.

General Living Expenses: $530 Rent + $45 split utilities. Healthcare covered by employer, parents pay for bottom dollar car insurance and phone plan, though I may be splitting off from this this year (adding to my expenses)

Food: Averaging about $300-350 a month, split half and half between groceries and eating out. Hoping to drop that to $250, and maybe even $200 or so as I go a couple months this year without eating out.

Car/Transportation: $100 average for gas, maybe about $90 average a month for a year's worth of maintenance. I run an old, old Infiniti that I got from my parents and plan on fixing up and driving into the ground. That said, maintenance and repair costs are starting to soar and I'd like to A) first start learning some DIY car care, and then B) start exploring my options for a cheap new (to me) car.

Random Bullshit: $235 worth of clothes, games, books, music, gifts, and hobby crap. Gifts and hobby stuff (I do amateur costuming and propmaking) are what really drain me dry, so I'm making an effort to shop around for better deals and emphasize to my friends and family that I want small, cheap, and useful gifts this year, and will probably reciprocate in kind.

Travel: International travel is non negotiable to me, due to family reasons, so I'm budgeting $1400 for that. However, I'm going to see if I can find a better priced "off season" time to go, and save on the plane tickets (by far the most expensive part)

After today's grocery trip, which cost a total of $23.55, and this does not include milk that my wife is going to buy tonight, the total is up to $1984.47

There is no way we are going to survive on $10 for 10 days. We are going to have to do some grocery shopping next week, and that will put us over $2000. That said, I am going to try to keep it to a minimum. I will be starting a different thread for February shortly. Lets keep this thread going until the end of the month. On January 31st, I will publish the full list of expenses for the month.

This is my goal too, even though I most likely won't make it all the way this month. My spending this month so far is $1676 and my projected monthly cost at current pace is $2556. I live a nomadic life so I like to distribute my costs on a daily basis, since my rent isn't paid in advance all the time etc. Here's my daily cost breakdown so far:

Rent: $27Transport: $16Food: $12Insurance: $5Misc: $13Business: $10

Business includes coworking spaces and server hosting. I'm not going to separate this from my personal expenses until my business has a decent cashflow. Misc mostly consists of clothes (3), a bunch of subscriptions, and vaccines (5 - rabies shots are expensive!). My goal is to bring this down to roughly 20/10/10/5/10/10.

Rent is on track of ending at a daily $25 when the month is over, and Transport is likely to go down a bunch too (long-haul flight stands for a lot of the the cost in this category). I think I can get food and misc down a few notches too before the month is over.

i should be able to hit this 2k/month most months this year. I know there will be a couple of months were it may be double that due to upcoming house projects. Vacations/travel will also more than likely break this challenge. But keeping my "normal expenses" under 2k shouldnt be much of an issue. So i am semi-in on this challenge.

This is my goal too, even though I most likely won't make it all the way this month. My spending this month so far is $1676 and my projected monthly cost at current pace is $2556. I live a nomadic life so I like to distribute my costs on a daily basis, since my rent isn't paid in advance all the time etc.

Do you actually pay rent on a daily basis? Or are you just doing the math in this manner for it to be convenient for you?

I think in my next thread for February, I will qualify this a little bit better. When I am talking about keeping expenses under $2000, I meant regular essential expenses which does not include medical costs, etc. I will post the categories whose sum I intend to keep under $2000.